Networked environments allow network users to share network resources such as printers, data base servers, e-mail servers and the like. Unfortunately, traditional wired networks, such as wired local area networks (LANs), can present significant limitations with respect to providing access to mobile client devices because they require that these mobile devices be physically connected to the network. Accordingly, wireless LANs (WLANs) are becoming increasingly popular, especially those based on the wireless standards developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and designated IEEE 802.11. These WLANs provide mobile client devices with wireless access from any location within range of one or more access points (AP) associated with the WLAN. In this way, mobile client devices can access a WLAN, and potentially one or more backhaul networks (wired and/or wireless mesh) or wireless networks linked to the WLAN, without being physically connected to the network. This is advantageous, especially since mobile client devices, such as laptops, smartphones, personal digital assistant (PDA) phones and the like, with wireless functionality are fast becoming ubiquitous. As such, it is not surprising that increasing the throughput capacity provided by APs associated with WLANs is an ongoing concern.
Unfortunately, traditional approaches directed to increasing WLAN throughput capacity are not optimal. Specifically, these approaches typically focus on the amount of space being covered (“coverage”) and only treat the throughput capacity (“capacity”) as a secondary concern. This is at least partly due to the fact that increasing the capacity of WLANs is often prohibitively expensive. For instance, increasing capacity by increasing the density of APs can be impractical given the hardware and/or software costs typically associated with procuring a large number of APs. For these reasons, enterprises deploying WLANs tend to only deploy the minimum number of WLAN APs necessary to achieve the desired coverage. Furthermore, even when enterprises do deploy more WLAN APs, thus increasing the AP density of the WLAN, they still do not achieve significant increases in throughput capacity because they fail to fully leverage the potential advantages associated with this density by employing effective spectrum utilization techniques.
Accordingly, there is a need to significantly enhance the overall throughput capacity available to client devices connected to a WLAN by increasing the AP density on the WLAN and by successfully leveraging this density through effective spectrum utilization techniques.